At a big meeting attended by 600, but closed to the media, at the Jerilderie Civic Centre in the southern Riverina only 67 per cent of A-class grower shareholders accepted the offer, eight per cent short of the 75pc required to pass the deal, which would have netted them $50,000 each for their single A-class shares.

Growers baulked at changing the constitution which limits SunRice's maximum share ownership by any single entity in the iconic Australian company.

B-class shareholders in the dual-class National Stock Exchange-listed rice processing, value-adding and marketing icon were being offered $5.025 a share in the deal.

About 54.7m B-class shares are held by growers, former growers, current and former staff and others across the southern NSW irrigation region where this year's rice harvest has made a big post-drought recovery to exceed 800,000 tonnes.

SunRice has almost 800 A-class shareholders.

It required a 75 per cent vote from those attending the meeting for the constitution to be altered allowing the Ebro bid to be officially considered in a ballot.

The SunRice board, which has been challenged by debt costs estimated at close to $300m, supported the sale.

Directors had argued Ebro assured the industry of competitive long-term price guarantees for growers and on-going support for SunRice's infrastructure and staff - something that it was hard-pressed to do with its current lean capital base.

However, speculation had been brewing that if successful Ebro may sell off SunRice's food import and stockfeed businesses, Riviana Foods and Coprice to help cover its takeover bid costs and promises to growers.